For gaming: Frequency or Latency (CAS)

[wrenaudrey]

There are now a huge range of RAM available in the market today.

But for gaming and cost aside, is it better to have higher frequency ram or lower latency?

I watched a video comparing the 8350 and 3570k and it touched the ram side abit because they used different kits, +I cant remember the channel or who it was exactly but it mentioned something about...
Latency being more crucial, obviously with a frequency of say 1600mhz, for productivity
and Frequency being more crucial for gaming, with latencies not going above C13/14 ofcourse.

 

[SavageCupcake]

I think ivy bridge prefers higher frequency from what I remember. Not so sure on amd. Any 1600mhz kit will be fine but if the price difference isn't to much then go for the fastest kit you can, just don't pay a crazy amount.

 

[s3ns3]

meh...

 

[SavageCupcake]

meh...

Forgot to add that for gaming there's sweet FA difference. Only really in rendering and other ram intensive stuff.

 

[Bang]

Playing from a ram drive alledgedly shows increased performance when using higher frequency ram but as those times are measured in nanoseconds I dont really know if the 'real world' application shows any noticable speed increase/load time decrease.

I think nowadays its only neccessary to have a decent amount of ram to ensure good gaming. It's not really about how fast the ram is. Much of it is purely psychological.

 

[MacLeod]

Yup, was gonna say, it aint gonna matter. About the only place youll notice a difference in RAM speed is in benchmarks. I went from DDR2-800 to DDR3-1600 and noticed NO difference at all in actual real world use. Now I dont do anything like photo work or video editing so maybe it matters there for but gaming and other general use stuff, its all about the same.